Muu Steakhouse — Restaurant in Porto

My husband and I celebrated our anniversary here for the first time on a Friday night at 9:30pm. We called the day before and there were only two reservations left. I highly recommend you make a reservation at least two days in advance.

Once we entered the restaurant, we noticed that the atmosphere was very inviting and we were greeted with two glasses of complimentary champagne and big smiles from the staff.

Once we were seated, the staff came by, sat next to us and engaged us in conversation. I noticed this from all of the staff. It's very comfortable and inviting, like family. We each ordered a glass of wine and they brought over a couvert which consisted of two types of bread, a garlic butter and a truffle butter as well as two of their own meat croquettes, all of which were extremely tasty and delicious. We ordered vinho verde and the brand that was recommended to us by João was Monólogo Arinto. It was very smooth, flavorful, not very dry or "bubbly."

For starters, we ordered the Scotch egg which was delicious! The crispy outside lead to a warm, meaty and perfectly cooked egg inside. It was topped with a piece of broccoli, a half of a brussel sprout, and a delicious sauce.

I ordered the filet and hubby ordered the ribeye. Based on our tastes, João recommended that our steaks be cooked "medium plus" (between medium and medium well). Let me just tell you that our steaks were cooked perfectly! The amount and taste of char on my filet was outstanding! The flavor of the meat was amazing and could be cut by a fork (it's true, I tried it). The salads we ordered were tasty as well. They were uncomplicated and had a variety of lettuce, a few pickled red onions, cherry tomatoes and a delicious vinagrete type dressing.

We ordered Lagavulin 16 yr scotch and grappa. The grappa reminded me of my family's grappa and was very flavorful.

Our waitress complimented us with a chocolate dessert which was out-of-this-world! This desert was not super sweet but had just enough to make it decadent.

We have been to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in the states and if you have ever been there, Muu is at least as good if not better. Here, we were treated like family. By the way, their playlist is stellar!

We had an appetizer, two steaks, a bottle of wine, two salads, a whisky and a grappa for 187€....

Service was fantastic but food and atmosphere brought it down to just above average.

Upon entry we (2 people) were served complementary champagne, appetizers and presented with a comprehensive overview of the menu. Bread and butter were given to start, which were excellent. The hosting/waiting staff were flawless from beginning to end.

Starters - The Polynesia seafood starter needed some improvement. Prawns were overcooked and the razor clams were not fresh and/or overcooked. The bisque sauce however was excellent.

Mains - The T-bone steak was excellent. Requested medium rare, was served more on the rare side but it was still very good. The mushroom and peppercorn sauces were blended to liquid, would have been better if the texture of mushrooms and peppercorns was somewhat retained - but granted that's personal taste. Decorative sprig of rosemary added on top of steak, but could have been elevated if they infused the rosemary with butter and basted in the cooking.

Sides - This is where the main substandard performance came. The oven rice was very salty. It had great potential, and perhaps it was just that batch. To their credit, they did not charge for this and provided complementary fries to substitute. We also ordered the vegetables, which frankly were poorly done and not restaurant standard. Broccoli and asparagus semi boiled/steamed, undercooked with no seasoning or flair. Could have been grilled, and done with some butter, garlic and lemon.

Dessert - The walnut cake was flawless.

Wine - Great selection, the reds ordered were exceptionaly good.

Plating/presentation - Excellent

Atmosphere - Our booking was at 10pm. Granted it was a later service, but midway through there was some very loud yelling, celebrating Euros football - by a customer, and some staff. I'm glad Portugal made it through, but, this is supposed to be a fine dining establishment, not a sports bar. It cheapened the ambience somewhat.

To conclude, I want to reiterate that the staff and service was fantastic. And perhaps my experience was an outlier. For the price point I think there's room for some...

In fairness, I’ll start by saying we live in Alberta, Canada which has some of the best beef anywhere. Anyone who also lives with top quality beef (Texas or Argentina) will understand that the steak served here is probably considered good by Portuguese standards. But for such an extraordinarily high price by Porto standards, the beef is well off the mark.

Having looked forward to this visit for months, their approach is next level high end. It started out well enough with excellent bread and garlic butters but went downhill. My wife sent back four different red wines because none of them are bold enough for quality beef. To be fair again, we lived in Napa Valley so for us no Portuguese wine matches our standards. I wanted a good beer but all they had was Heineken and a few others so I settled for an average Belgian Amber beer I never heard of.

They recommend one starter and one steak to split. While most reviewers seem to choose the Johnnys scotch, we prefer seafood so ordered the polenisia. Featuring only three average size shrimp, razor clams that were as rubbery as stale squid and two small mussels doused in sauce, this dish was highly disappointing and definitely overpriced.

For the steak we chose the cut called El Txeuleton. Our server Rose convinced us that it was well marbled and similar to the ribeye cut. Unfortunately there’s a difference between marbled and pure fat. About one third of the slices are literally 100 percent fat that humans shouldn’t consume. The steak itself is low on flavor and appeared to be seasoned only with salt (lightly) and perhaps some rosemary. Compared to compatibly priced steakhouses in North America, the quality was average at best. Quantity would be the only five star part of the main dish.

Sadly, I enjoyed the potato side dish more than the steak.

Coming in at over 100 euros, it was more than double the price of every restaurant we’ve eaten at in nine days of being in Lisbon and Porto. If the quality matched the price, I’d be fine with that but I’d say skip the steakhouses in Portugal and enjoy the cheese, roasted pork...